


are you growing without me?

by prydon



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternatively titled: three times Nureyev refused to start recovering and one time he didn't, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Other, peter nureyev vs the mortifying ordeal of being known
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26198668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prydon/pseuds/prydon
Summary: Nureyev wanted to be happy for the love of his life, and he was. He was so proud of how far he’d come, and how he’d been able to confront his trauma and come out the other side of it as a stronger, softer person.Every time he saw Juno smile or heard him laugh, he felt a warmth inside his chest. Every time Juno sought help, apologized for a mistake or refused to wallow in his own misery, Nureyev was flooded with pride.And he was also flooded with envy.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 34
Kudos: 197





	are you growing without me?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Next Up Forever" by AJR.
> 
> My last two Jupeter fic were both fluff so.....now it's time for 8k words of Nureyev being SAD.
> 
> I swear, every time I listen to Man in Glass I notice a new line that inspires me to write something. This time, it was "Looking at this new man, respecting what he has made himself into and, perhaps, even envying it...there is nothing I want more than to stay." Namely, the "envying" part, and the idea that Nureyev is jealous of Juno's recovery.
> 
> CWs for Junoverse-typical violence, and just general...unhappy brain stuff like flashbacks, panic attacks and depressive episodes.

A lot can change in a year.

Nureyev discovered that quickly, on board the Carte Blanche with Juno Steel.

In many ways, he was the same Juno that Nureyev had met in that dingey office all those months ago: awkward, witty, observant and beautifully sanctimonious. In other ways, though, he was a completely different lady to the one that Nureyev had first stolen a kiss from.

It wasn’t that his pain was gone entirely, of course. ‘All better’ was just a myth, Juno had joked once, and he’d been right. The things that haunted him would always haunt him to some extent, and there were still plenty of bad days. The difference was in how he dealt with them, and that difference was enormous.

Nureyev recalled one evening when he’d found Juno sitting in the stream room alone, the screen dark, staring off into space. There was a tension behind his eyes, a heavy grief in the downward slope of his shoulders, every inch of him poised like he was about to shatter into a million pieces. He’d been a little off all day, but now he looked like an absolute mess.

“Juno?” Nureyev had asked cautiously. “Are you all right?”

Juno reflexively looked away. “It’s nothing.”

“Juno…”

There was a moment of quiet, and then he said, “No, actually. It’s not nothing. It’s just that…today is the anniversary of…my brother…When he…”

“Ah.”

“Sorry. Gloomy, I know.”

“No need to apologize, my dear,” Nureyev said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Juno hesitated again, considering this, then said, “…Yeah, actually. I think I do. Not…not about him dying, but…I want to tell you about him. He…was the other half of me for so many years. It feels like you should know him. Know about him.”

Nureyev had nodded and taken a seat beside him, and then spent the next hour listening to Juno tell stories about his twin brother. He’d laughed as he told them, and cried, and then curled up in Nureyev’s arms, mumbling about how Benzaiten would have liked Nureyev if he’d met him. _“Well, okay, he probably would’ve hated you at first, but once he got to know you…”_

Nureyev could tell it was painful for him, but cathartic too. He was glad that Juno had trusted him enough to confide in him about something so deeply personal, and they both went to bed feeling closer than they’d been the previous night.

Mag’s birthday was still seared into Nureyev’s brain, no matter how hard he tried to forget it.

He’d tried to ignore the date when he saw it approaching on the calendar, and pretend that it meant nothing to him. Why should it matter, anyway? They’d barely even celebrated it when Mag was alive, and now he had been dead for over twenty years. It was ridiculous that Nureyev still remembered it after all this time.

Nonetheless, when the day arrived he found himself trapped in a time long gone, his mind filled with constant, unwelcome thoughts of the past. Every time he blinked, an owl-eyed man stared at him from the blackness of the underside of his lids. Every time he washed his hands, he smelled blood.

“…Nureyev?”

He hadn’t realized how far he’d been from his body until Juno pulled him back from it with that single word, that name only he and so few others knew. He looked up at Juno from where he’d been standing idle at the sink. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been alone in the bathroom, letting the water run and staring at it blankly while his mind was back on Brahma.

“Ah. Hello, Juno,” he said, immediately plastering on a smile. “Sorry if I was hogging the restroom.”

Juno furrowed his brow. “Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing, dear.”

“Nureyev…”

The soft, disbelieving tone with which Juno said his name was identical to the one that Nureyev had used that night, on the anniversary of Benzaiten’s death. It was saying the same thing: _I know you’re not okay, so please tell me what’s wrong. Talk to me._

For a moment, Nureyev thought he might.

Then the moment passed.

“I told you, it’s nothing,” he said, still smiling, and slipped past Juno and out of the bathroom without another word.

On another day, Juno didn’t leave his room for hours.

Nureyev noticed his absence immediately when he made himself coffee in the morning, and pondered it for every minute that he was gone. He was just about to insist on bursting into his room to make sure he hadn’t mysteriously passed away in his sleep when Rita got a message on her comms.

“Oh! It’s Mistah Steel,” she said.

Nureyev sat straight up immediately. “Oh? What did he say?”

“Looks like he’s having one of his bad days. The ones where everything’s all gray, and such like.”

“…I don’t see why that’s anything to smile about,” he said, baffled by her expression.

“It’s not!” Rita said. “It’s just that…he told me! Usually the boss just disappears to his room or apartment or wherever for hours or days, locks all the doors an’ turns off his comms an’ refuses to talk to me or anyone, even when I try and call him a bunch of times. But this time he told me!” She waved her comms at him happily.

“Ah.”

“He says he ain’t feeling too good an’ he ain’t up for talking but if I wanna watch a stream in his room, I can.” She hopped up and down. “I’m gonna bring him some ice cream and pick one of his favorites!”

Before she raced off to the kitchen, she patted Nureyev on the elbow. “I’ll ask him if he’d like you to come, too. If he doesn’t you don’t gotta take it personal, though. He’s known me for a real, real long time now and it’s still hard for him to ask me for help. He might just not be up for seeing lots of folks right now.”

Nureyev nodded. “I understand. I’m just glad he was willing to tell you.”

“Right! Isn’t that great?! I’m real proud of Mistah Steel.”

“I am too, Rita,” he said, and he meant it.

Nureyev remembered that day, when he awoke one morning to his limbs and his head feeling so heavy that he could barely bring himself to move.

He managed to drag himself far enough from his bed to sit down at his vanity, with every intention of doing his makeup. He didn’t do his makeup, though. Instead he sat in front of the mirror and just stared at his reflection until he didn’t recognize it anymore.

All of a sudden, the weight of everything was pressing down on him, and it was too heavy to bear: his age, his debts, his past and his future were pushing against him from all sides, and he was suffocating. The filing cabinet of his mind had fallen to pieces and he was desperately struggling to pick up all the papers from where they’d scattered across floor before he fell apart, too.

He didn’t want to see or be see by anyone right now. He certainly didn’t want to talk. He curled up in his bed under the covers and tried not to think.

Eventually, he heard the inevitable beep from his comms. He stared at the message from Juno blankly:

_Are you all right? Do you want me to come in?_

He did want Juno to come in, he realized, and at the same time it was the absolute last thing he wanted. He wanted to see Juno, to hold him, to cling to him as a reminder that he still had things in his life that were solid and that weren’t going to hurt him.

But letting Juno in meant explanations. It meant allowing himself to be exposed, in this rawest of forms, and to admit that he wasn’t as okay as he was determined to come across as. He couldn’t have that.

So he simply messaged back that he was sick and not to come inside lest he was contagious, and spent the rest of the day drowning in his own mind and ignoring all knocks at the door.

A couple of weeks later, they stopped on a moon near the Outer Rim to visit a market. By happenstance, a festival was happening in the area at the same time, and Rita insisted that they visit it. It was a small affair, with stands set up selling backed goods, handmade trinkets, or tickets to play simple games and earn prizes.

Vespa and Juno had somehow managed to turn a simple game of ring toss into a proper competition, each insisting on playing it again and again until someone won the top prize. Neither had succeeded yet.

“Nice one, Steel,” Vespa snarled through a smirk when Juno missed his third toss in a row.

“Hey, I’m the one with no depth perception!” he protested. “What’s _your_ excuse for making less throws than I did on our last round?”

“The game is rigged! The pegs are purposefully angled so it’s nearly impossible to get the ring onto them!”

“Yeah, no duh. That’s why I keep missing.”

“Really? I thought you just said it was because of your eye.”

“It can be both!”

Nureyev watched them argue, his temple aching slightly. He hadn’t slept much the previous night, having spent the majority of it painstakingly going over his finances again, and the lack of rest was catching up to him. He felt tired and irritable, and listening to the two ladies argue loudly wasn’t helping.

He felt a hand on his arm and flinched.

“Sorry to startle you, darling,” Buddy said. “How are you?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you,” he responded, composing himself.

She looked past him at Juno and Vespa, who had shoved two more tickets at the now-exasperated owner of the ring toss stand, a soft smile playing on her lips. “It’s good to see them getting along.”

“…Captain, I mean no disrespect, but I’m not certain you understand the meaning of the phrase ‘getting along’.”

She chuckled. “They’re arguing, yes, but it’s only for fun. Look. You can tell they’re not actually angry with each other.”

Nureyev frowned, following her eye back to them. He realized he knew what she meant. Despite all the shouting and shoving, Vespa and Juno both looked like they were on the verge of laughter. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before. They were fighting like siblings, not enemies. They were having a good time.

“Oh,” he said, feeling something twist slightly inside of him.

Rita and Jet appeared a few minutes later, Rita’s arms laden with food.

“Look what I found!” she announced, smiling hugely. “There was a stand selling chicken fingers and fries! I know Captain A can’t have ‘em on account of her allergies, but I thought everybody else would like some!”

It turned out that food was the perfect way to distract Vespa and Juno from their feud, and they finally wrenched themselves away from the ring toss stand to go over and grab their servings. Their eyes met for a moment, and then without speaking they both tore into the food at once, apparently having communicated yet another competition to each other- the reward for this one, whatever it may have been, going to whoever finished first.

Jet chewed a fry experimentally. “I did not know that it was possible for such a small item of food to contain such a large volume of grease.”

“I know, right?!” Rita said. “That’s the best part about ‘em!”

He nodded. “It is not a bad taste.”

Rita danced over to Nureyev and held out his fries and chicken. “Here you go, Mistah Ransom!”

Nureyev couldn’t stop the curl of his lip and the way he leaned back slightly to get away from the heavy, greasy smell. He held up a hand. “I’m quite all right, Rita.”

“Really? But you haven’t eaten since this morning, right?”

Vespa scoffed through a mouthful. “Typical _Ransom._ Of course he thinks he’s too good for street food. Sorry it’s not a gourmet oyster dish at some five star restaurant, your _majesty._ Some of us grew up on this kind of stuff, you know.”

Juno nodded. “These taste so much like the fries Mick and I would steal from the back of Oldtown’s only fast food joint when we were kids. Brings me back.”

“Done!” Vespa said suddenly, holding up her empty wrappers.

“Wh-what? How did you do that so fast?” Juno said.

“It’s a skill. _You_ owe me two tickets.”

Nureyev watched them bicker, his hands folded and trembling slightly.

 _I grew up on it too,_ he wanted to say. _On stolen street food and greasy leftovers thrown out at the backs of restaurants. That’s why I don’t want to eat it now. Can’t eat it now. I can’t let myself remember that time. I can’t unlock that door._

“Well, if it’s too good for Ransom, I’ll take his share,” Vespa said. “I missed breakfast this morning.”

“Good thing!” Rita chirped. “I wouldn’t want it to go to waste.”

_I don’t want it to go to waste, either. There’s nothing I loathe more than food being wasted. I know from experience just how important a meal is, and how far it can go._

He didn’t say any of that out load. It felt too personal, too real. Instead he silently watched the group talking, laughing and eating, and suddenly felt very alone.

Buddy called them a family, but they weren’t one, were they? They were a family…and also Ransom. He wasn’t a part of this.

He watched as Juno accidentally hit Vespa with his elbow and she jumped, startled, and shouldered him away. He watched as the ex-detective immediately apologized instead of getting defensive and fighting back. He watched him laugh loudly at something Jet had said and playfully snag one of the big man’s fries.

Juno hadn’t been comfortable here at first either, but he’d found his way. He’d already been close to Rita, and he got closer to the others every day. Even his rivalry with Vespa had transformed into something much softer and more affectionate.

Nureyev felt like he was holding a snow globe, looking in at a picture of a happy family while he was trapped on the outside, a barrier of glass between them.

The worst part was knowing that he could easily break the glass, if he simply tried.

That was all Juno had done, after all. He’d tried. He’d let himself be vulnerable with them, and explained himself when he was in a bad mood or didn’t want to do something. When he lashed out, he apologized. It should have been easy.

Yet Nureyev didn’t even have it in him to defend his distaste for street food. Even that was deemed too personal, too much, despite the fact that leaving it unexplained made him seem snobbish and choosy.

He spent the rest of the outing trailing a short distance behind the others, and feeling immensely silly for doing so. He knew Buddy and the others were willing to care. They wanted to like him and trust him. They tried to include him. Nureyev knew full well that the distance he was putting between himself and them, literal and otherwise, was one of his own making. Nonetheless, he couldn’t bring himself to close it. Nonetheless, he felt the pain of that distance all the more strongly every time Juno smiled at something someone else said to him, and then felt guilty for feeling it.

“Hey.”

Without him realizing, Juno had hung back from the group as well, and was now walking beside him.

“Hey,” he responded.

“You okay?”

Part of him wanted to give some vague noncommittal answer and then refuse to elaborate, thus forcing Juno to worry about and stay with him without actually telling him what was wrong. It was his first instinct, doing something childish and hurtful like that. He pushed the instinct aside.

Juno was having a good time here, eating and playing games with his _family._ Nureyev wasn’t going to ruin that with…what? _Jealousy?_ What was he even jealous of?

That Juno had gotten better without his help? Or just that he’d gotten better at all?

“I’m quite all right, my love,” he said, forcing a smile that he hoped looked genuine. “A little tired, is all. You have fun. I’ll be right here.”

Juno still looked a little suspicious, but his face eventually softened and he seemed to accept the explanation. He squeezed Nureyev’s hand, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Of course,” Nureyev lied.

He hated it.

He wanted to be happy for the love of his life, and he was. He was so proud of how far he’d come, and how he’d been able to confront his trauma and come out the other side of it as a stronger, softer person. Every time he saw Juno smile or heard him laugh, he felt a warmth inside his chest. Every time Juno sought help, apologized for a mistake or refused to wallow in his own misery, Nureyev was flooded with pride.

And he was also flooded with envy.

How was Juno able to talk about it? How could he tell stories about his childhood without shattering? Recently he’d relayed whole days from his past, meanwhile Nureyev had never once managed to so much as say Mag’s name out loud since the man had died. How could Juno let himself cry freely, unafraid of what Nureyev might think? How did he allow himself to be that vulnerable without feeling like he was being ripped apart?

Some days Nureyev felt so close to Juno, and others he felt like they were lightyears apart. Like they were climbing the same mountain, but Juno was nearing the summit while Nureyev was still stuck at the base. They shared so much of the same pain, so why? Why was Juno able to change himself into something so much better while Nureyev couldn’t get up the nerve to even admit that he was hurting in front of him?

Juno didn’t seem to notice the distance between them, himself. At least, Nureyev had thought that he didn’t.

Then one night they were halfway through one of their 3 am conversations when Juno stopped and fixed Nureyev with a frustrated expression.

“Why don’t you ever talk?” he asked.

Nureyev frowned. “I do talk, my dear.”

“Well, yeah, you talk all the time, but you never… _say_ anything. Not really. I’m always here bearing my soul, and you always know the right questions to ask and the right way to answer mine so that it seems like you’re saying a lot, but…you aren’t, are you? Not really. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Nureyev, we’ve never even talked about Brahma!”

Nureyev felt himself flinch and Juno immediately backpedaled.

“I’m sorry,” Juno said. “I shouldn’t have…Look. At first I thought that…well, you probably just don’t need to get all weepy and self-reflect-y as often as I do, because you’re not like me. You’re…better put together. Haven’t got the same amount of baggage. But…I saw what happened on that day in New Kinshasa, Nureyev. I know you’ve been through hell.”

“You saw what a mess I am,” Nureyev said softly before he could stop himself. “What a monster.”

Juno’s shoulders sagged. “Nureyev…”

He looked away, because he knew if he looked at Juno right then he’d start crying, and he refused to do that.

“This is exactly what I mean,” Juno said. “This whole time…have you just been wondering what I saw in your mind and how it made me feel? What it made me think of you? Why didn’t you just _ask_ me?”

 _Because I was afraid of the answer,_ was the truth. He didn’t say it. He didn’t say anything.

“If you had, I could have told you that it didn’t make me think any less of you at all. That I’m so sorry you went through that, and I don’t blame you. That I don’t know if I would have done anything different. That I _don’t_ think you’re a monster. I never have.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Nureyev said roughly.

“If you really mean that, I’ll drop it,” Juno said. “But I don’t think you mean ‘right now’. I think you mean ‘I don’t want to talk about it _ever’,_ and let me tell you from firsthand experience- that doesn’t work. Pushing it away and never dealing with it doesn’t help. It just-”

“I _know,”_ Nureyev spat, cutting him off. “You think I don’t know that you’re better than me? Just because you’re ready to… _heal_ doesn’t mean I am. Doesn’t mean I _can._ Not all of us spent the last year going through a journey of self-discovery, you know. Some of us spent it getting fucking _worse.”_

Juno’s face then made Nureyev immediately want to take back everything he’d said. The worst part was the fact that he didn’t even look angry or guilty or any of the expressions that the old Juno Steel would have had upon being snapped at. He just looked sad and wounded- on Nureyev’s behalf, not his own. That was somehow a million times worse.

“I don’t know how you spent the last year, Nureyev,” Juno said finally. “You’ve never told me that, either.”

“It’s…it’s not important,” Nureyev said, desperately trying to backpedal. “I was just being dramatic.”

“No, you weren’t. You’re hurt, and I…I’m sorry for not noticing that sooner. I was so caught up in my own recovery that I didn’t stop to think about what you might be going through.”

“I didn’t exactly make it easy for you to notice anything was wrong. On the contrary, I tried…very hard to avoid you noticing.”

“But something _is_ wrong.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Nureyev longed to deny it anyway, to turn back time so that none of this conversation happened at all, but he knew he couldn’t.

“I’m not ready,” he said, and he voice came out much weaker and quieter than he’d intended it to. He felt rubbed raw, like his very skin had been ripped off and he was now sitting on the bed next to Juno with all his organs exposed. “I’m not ready to…face all of it yet. To talk about it. I…I’m glad that you are. Proud that you are. I just can’t.”

“Okay.”

Suddenly there was a hand on his back, rubbing circles over his spine, and he realized there were tears in his eyes. He hurriedly wiped them away. “Okay?” he repeated, surprised by this response. _I’ve already been torn open,_ he thought. _You might as well rip the rest out of me. What little dignity I have left. Why are you sparing me now?_

Juno took a deep breath. “Look, if someone had asked me to talk about my past or my feelings a year ago, I would’ve laughed in their face. Stuff like this takes time, and that’s okay.”

Nureyev couldn’t imagine a future where he was willing to be as vulnerable and open as Juno had allowed himself to be in their past weeks aboard the Carte Blanche. That future felt like it was at the end of a road a thousand miles long, a road that he was not even on yet- he was off to the side, staggered by the distance, too terrified to so much as set foot on the asphalt.

“Can you…just do one thing for me?” Juno asked cautiously.

“What?” Nureyev said, more harshly than he’d intended.

“You don’t have to talk right now, but can you promise me you _will_ talk to me later? That you’ll give me at least some small look into that head of yours?”

“I believe I already did that many months ago.”

Juno shook his head. “I saw what happened on that day, but I didn’t…I didn’t hear it from you. I want to hear about it from you, not some Martian tumor. I don’t want to literally see into your brain. I don’t want to look you up and learn about you from articles other people wrote. I just want you to _talk_ to me.”

 _Haven’t I revealed enough to you?_ Nureyev longed to say. _I’ve already given you more than I’ve given any other person._

But no, he realized. It wasn’t enough. A name and the knowledge of the worst day of your entire life wasn’t all that much, in the grand scheme of things. Juno was right. There was so much that he still didn’t know about Nureyev. So much that Nureyev didn’t even know where to begin telling him about it, or how.

“I want you to let me help you,” Juno said softly.

Nureyev shook his head slightly. “Look at yourself, Juno. You’ve come so far. You’re working so hard to get better, and I…I don’t want to get in the way of that. I don’t want you to worry about me when you should be focusing on you. This part of your life is supposed to be about you helping yourself. Not me.”

“Can’t I do both?”

“I don’t know. Can you, without setting yourself back?”

Juno hesitated, seriously considering this, then nodded. “I can. Besides, I…want you beside me. I want us to be able to grow and heal together. I want you on this journey with me, Nureyev.”

The lady’s hand hadn’t moved, but Nureyev knew it was being outstretched toward him nonetheless. Juno wasn’t denying how long and terrifying that road was. He was just suggesting that they walk it together.

It still sounded like an arduous, painful task that Nureyev wasn’t entirely sure was more worthwhile than keeping all his feelings carefully padlocked away, but to do it with Juno…Well, it almost sounded bearable.

“I don’t know,” he said meekly. “I…I want to. I just don’t know if I can.”

“Take your time. I’ll be here.”

Nureyev believed him, he realized. He believed this new version of Juno would be here for as long as Nureyev needed. He wasn’t jealous anymore, either. He was…awed. Fascinated. Curious, as to how the gloomy private eye with a death wish he’d met back in Hyperion City had ended up as the soft, understanding lady now sitting in front of him.

What kind of person would Nureyev turn out to be, if he ever _did_ reach the end of that road?

That thought terrified him, too. Would he lose all his sharp edges and become something weak and breakable again, like that boy revolutionary back on Brahma? Would he still be a thief? Who was Peter Nureyev, with his file cabinets opened and padlocks undone? Was he someone worth being? Worth knowing? Worth loving? He couldn’t be sure.

But if Juno’s transformation was anything to go off of…Well. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

He tentatively reached out and placed a hand on top of Juno’s, then leaned into him, letting Juno wrap an arm around him. He felt like he’d just used up his entire quota of feeling and displaying emotions for at least the next week.

The last display of vulnerability he was willing to allow for the night was to sink into his lady’s torso, close his eyes, and say, “I’ll try, Juno.”

He couldn’t see Juno’s face, but he did hear a sharp intake of breath that sounded both surprised and delighted. In that moment his fears subsided slightly, and all he could think was that he was glad he’d made Juno happy.

The next heist they performed was led by Buddy and Nureyev.

Nureyev’s role was simple: break into the security office and steal the skeleton key that was there, then pass it on to Buddy so she could use it to complete the next step of the plan.

It didn’t take much effort to knock out the guards surrounding the office, especially when he was dressed as one. The loose-fitting tan jumpsuit wasn’t exactly to Nureyev’s taste, but he could live with it. It also took a lot more consideration when he wasn’t allowed to kill or even significantly injure any of the guards. He was willing to hold back, though, if it made Juno feel better.

Spotting the key was easy, too. They hadn’t exactly hidden it. In fact, it was stuck right in the center of the security system’s control panel. They might as well have put up a neon sign pointing to it.

Nureyev should’ve guessed that it was too easy.

As soon as he grabbed the key from the slot, the air was filled with loud, rhythmic beeping.

“Ransom, what’s going on in there!?” Vespa asked in his ear.

He swore. “The key I took must have been a decoy. It’s set off the alarms.”

“There are guards heading your way, Mistah Ransom!” Rita exclaimed. “Get outta there now!”

“Right,” he said. “I’ll…”

The alarms had gotten even louder, and the room was suddenly flooded with red light.

Nureyev’s first thought was, _Isn’t this alarm system a little excessive? What purpose does adding dramatic lighting serve?_

His second thought was of a day twenty years gone, of a blade, of hands covered in blood, of a man he’d considered his father lying on the floor bathed in red light.

_No._

Now was not the time to let those memories resurface. They were planets and decades away from that red room. This was a completely different scenario, and there was no reason for him to freeze now. So why couldn’t he move?

“Ransom, what the hell are you doing?” Vespa snarled. “Run!”

His feet were stuck to the ground like they were nailed there. He heard the pounding of the guards’ boots outside and instinctively pulled his knife from his thigh holster, but as soon as his fingers gripped the cool metal it sent him spiraling even further.

_“Really, Pete? You’d draw a knife on me?”_

The guards were at the door. From their feet, he could guess there were at least three of them, and they were definitely armed.

_“I stand for something, Pete. I thought you were the same.”_

He dropped the knife and it clattered to the floor.

The door to the office burst open.

His own voice, so much younger, echoed in his mind.

_“It could be so easy. Just wait for the guards to take you out...and let that be the end of Peter Nureyev.”_

“Pete!”

He looked up, eyes wide, the name of that man half-formed on his lips before he realized that this particular voice didn’t belong to a memory. It belonged to someone very real, with fiery red hair and a mechanical eye. Someone who was currently tackling him to the ground to prevent him from getting hit in the face by a blaster shot.

“I’m too old for this,” she said as she picked herself up off the hard metal and pulled out her own blaster.

Now that Nureyev had mostly returned to reality, he was able to process the scene in front of him. Two guards had come through the door and were pointing their weapons at them, and a third was lying prone on the floor, where they must have been downed by Buddy.

“Peter, darling, are your legs working?” she asked.

“…Yes,” he said vaguely.

“Good, because we need to get out of here. Come on.”

She picked up one of the chairs by the control panel and lobbed it at the guards, startling them long enough for her to grab Nureyev and yank him to his feet. He still wasn’t entirely back in his own body yet, but he was present enough to allow himself to be dragged along by Buddy as she barreled straight for the door. Nureyev felt the hiss of blaster fire as it narrowly missed them.

“Mistah Ransom!? Captain A?!” Rita said in his ear. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” Buddy said, voice strained. “I’m extracting Ransom. We’re almost to the elevator. We’ll take it down to the basement and you can meet us there.”

“Aye aye, captain!”

They slipped into the elevator and Buddy slammed her fist against the button that closed the door. It shut just in time, one final desperate shot from one of the guards leaving a scorch mark on the back wall directly between Buddy and Nureyev.

Nureyev leaned against said wall, taking deep breaths, his head spinning. He was too overwhelmed to even feel angry with himself for ruining everything yet. He just felt scared and confused, one foot in a dangerous past and the other in a dangerous present.

Buddy had slid down to the rest on the floor of the lift. “Peter, could you be a dear and press the button for the basement? I’m afraid I don’t have it in me at the moment.”

He stared at her and realized for the first time that the bright silver dress she’d been wearing as part of her disguise was stained sickly red on one side. She clutched at the wound, breathing heavily. There was so much blood. _Blood on his hands, blood on the knife-_

“C-Captain!” he stammered. “When did you-”

“One of them clipped me when I was tackling you out of the way,” she said weakly. “I’ve had worse, of course, but that was…years ago…”

Before Nureyev could catch her, her eye had slid back into her head and she collapsed onto the floor of the elevator.

She was herself, and then she was Mag lying still in front of him, and then she was herself again. He gasped for air and summoned every bit of strength he still had in him to activate his comms and whisper, “Man down. _We have a man down!”_

“So? What do you have to say for yourself, thief?”

“Leave him alone, Vespa.”

“No, I will not leave him alone, _Steel._ Your shitty boyfriend nearly got Buddy killed. She’s in the med bay with a blaster shot to the side because of him. I think it’s reasonable to expect an explanation. What is it, then, Ransom? You forget how to walk?”

Nureyev was still feeling jittery and unsettled after the whole ordeal, and he certainly wasn’t in any mood to explain himself, to Vespa or anyone. “I didn’t ask Captain Aurinko to assist me. I had things under control.”

“Under control?! You’re unbelievable! You really want me-”

“Look, obviously Ransom froze for a reason,” Juno interjected.

“Oh yeah? What was it, then?”

“…I don’t know, either, but he must have had one.” He looked to Nureyev with his one soft eye, imploring him to help defend himself.

Nureyev didn’t want to defend himself. He wanted to be left alone, and to pretend it had never happened at all.

Vespa wasn’t prepared to let him get away that easily, however. She reeled on him again. “So, Ransom? What, you never shut up the rest of the time, but _now_ you forget how to speak?”

He narrowed his eyes, rage surging through him. He wasn’t angry at Vespa, really- he was angry at that man in that red room, or maybe everyone who’d made the Guardian Angel System possible, or maybe at himself- but she was the nearest person to easily direct it at.

“I don’t recall this sort of interrogation when _you’ve_ frozen up on missions,” he hissed.

He knew exactly why she’d frozen up, and he knew referencing it was over the line, but he was too caught up in his own head to care.

Vespa looked like she was about to stab him. Not for the first time, he wondered which of them would win in a knife fight. He liked to think it would be him, but at this particular moment he felt less sure.

“Ransom…” Juno said. He was giving him a look that was both worried and disappointed, which were Nureyev’s two least favorite expressions to be on the receiving end of, especially when they came from Juno Steel.

“You little- I _have_ a reason,” Vespa spat, her voice laced with venom. “Unlike you, apparently. No, that’s not true. There is a reason. It’s that you’ve lost your touch. You act like you’re a legendary master thief, when you’re actually just some washed up old has-been-”

 _“Shut up.”_ He had to hand it her: just like he’d found hers, she’d found the exact right button to press to alight his temper and drudge up his deepest insecurities.

He didn’t even realize how close their faces were to each other, or to just what extent each was looking at the other like they were about to plunge a knife in their chest, until Juno stood between them and forced them apart.

“Hey. _Hey!”_ he said. “Stop it. Vespa, Ransom didn’t want Buddy to get hurt either. We all make mistakes. Ransom, apologize for what you said to Vespa.”

“Me? _Apologize?”_ Nureyev sputtered. “After she just called my competence, my _work_ into question-”

“Both of you should apologize!”

“No way am I apologizing to that snake,” Vespa said.

“Look, can’t you both just-”

“Really? _Juno Steel_ playing the genteel peacemaker?” Nureyev let out a harsh laugh. “And here I thought I’d seen it all.”

Juno’s expression turned to one of confusion and hurt. “Ransom, what the hell is wrong with you today!?”

“Just…” He bit his lip, and knew that if he had to stay there one moment longer he was going to do something abhorrent like start crying. “Just leave me alone.”

He pushed past Juno and Vespa and walked to his room, refusing to look back at them once before he reached it. He slipped inside as quickly as he could, slammed and locked the door, and then his legs gave out from under him and he slid to the floor.

He buried his head in his knees, choking back a sob. His whole body was trembling. The memories had been bad enough, but the consequences of them were much worse. He’d ruined their mission. He’d gotten their captain injured. He’d been cruel to Vespa. He’d even snapped at Juno, and why? To what end?

Images flashed in front of his mind: the crew, talking without him. Laughing without him.

He been able to forgive himself his inability to connect with them, to convince them to trust him, with the reassurance that at the very least he was useful to them as a thief. Today, though, he hadn’t even managed that. He’d failed both as a family member and as a business associate, and he didn’t know what to do. He felt sick.

He must have been an hour into his wallowing on the floor of his room when there was a soft knock on the door.

He’d been expecting that knock, he realized. He still didn’t know what to do now that he’d heard it, though. A part of him wanted to ignore it and push away any attempt at help like he had so many countless times before.

_I’ll try, Juno._

He’d said that, hadn’t he? It felt like so long ago, now. It felt like a dream.

“Come in,” he said finally, his voice coming out much rougher and weaker than he’d expected.

He was only just able to clamber to his feet and sit down on his bed before Juno input the code and opened the door.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Nureyev said. Juno was trying to keep his face neutral, he could tell, but he could still see a brief flicker of surprise and concern cross it. He wondered vaguely just how bad he must look, to have earned that expression.

Juno sat down beside him. “I know you didn’t freeze up for no reason back there.”

“Do you know that?” Nureyev said harshly. “Vespa didn’t seem to think so. Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I really have simply _lost my touch.”_

“We both know that’s not true, Nureyev.”

 _Do we?_ he thought, but just made a vague noise of assent.

“You promised me you’d talk to me,” Juno said.

“I don’t recall promising you anything. I said I would try, and that was it. I tried and I failed, so I’m done.”

If anything, what had happened today was proof to him that he could never do what Juno had done. He couldn’t face his past. Just being in a room with similar _lighting_ to a location from his teenage years had been enough to break him. How would he fare if he actually had to _talk_ about it? He shuddered at the thought.

Juno ignored his biting tone, seeing right through it as though Nureyev was a Neptunian water snake flashing its brightly colored form to give the illusion of toxicity, despite there being no actual venom in its fangs to speak of. “Please, Nureyev. Try one more time. For me.”

“You already know anyway, don’t you? You saw it in my mind.”

Juno hesitated, then nodded. “That room on New Kinshasa. That’s why, isn’t it?”

Nureyev breathed in sharply. “Right first try, detective. Well done.”

“So why not tell Vespa that?! You didn’t need to tell her what exactly happened or where, but you could have told her that the lights triggered a flashback. You know she would have empathized. You know none of us would judge you for that.”

“Yes, you would,” Nureyev said, cutting him off. “You might not judge me harshly, but you would still judge me. See me…differently.”

“See you as what? A human being, who can be as hurt or vulnerable as the rest of us? There’s nothing wrong with that, Nureyev! You don’t have to be perfect all the time. You don’t have to be okay all the time. What you _do_ have to do is stop bottling that shit up and then letting it out on us,” Juno said. “I would know. That’s how I spent the last few decades of my life, and it wasn’t…It didn’t get me anywhere. All it did was push people away.”

He didn’t want to push people away. He especially didn’t want to push Juno Steel away. He knew that, and yet his next words still had to be forced out of his throat like teeth being pulled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right.”

It was only when Juno’s shoulders sagged in relief that Nureyev realized how tensed they’d been previously. He’d probably been expecting to be lashed out at again, and Nureyev suddenly felt painfully guilty. Juno Steel had already had more than enough hurt for a lifetime. The least he could do was not add anymore to the pile.

He wasn’t sure he was ready to recover for his own sake yet, but he could at least try doing it for Juno- for the sake of this family that had taken him in, despite all evidence that doing so was a bad idea.

He shakily rose to his feet, then made his way over to his vanity. “Captain Aurinko is awake, correct?” he asked while fixing his makeup, relining his tear-smudged eyes.

“Uh, she was last time I checked,” Juno said. “She was reading in her bed in the infirmary.”

“Could you tell the others I’ll meet them there in a few minutes?”

“…Nureyev?”

He paused and set down his eyeliner, taking a deep breath before saying, “I ought to speak to everyone, I think. I owe them an apology, and an…explanation.”

“Okay,” Juno said. Nureyev could hear the shock and happiness in his voice, despite him obviously trying to hide it. “Right. Right, yes. That’s a great idea. I’ll go tell them.”

“Darling, if you're going to speak, I would appreciate if you did it sooner rather than later. I’m feeling rather tired at the moment.”

“Of course. I apologize.” Nureyev had gathered the crew in the med bay to talk, but now that he was actually here, he wanted to do anything but. It was all he could do to keep his hands from trembling where they were folded on his lap, and he could feel Vespa’s eyes burning into him.

“Spit it out, Ransom,” she said. “If you keep Buddy from her rest even one more second, I swear to God I’ll-”

“I’m sorry, Vespa,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. You do incredible work. I look up to you; I…I always have.” He turned to meet Buddy’s eye. “Captain, I apologize to you as well. You were hurt because of my shortcoming. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Perhaps it shouldn’t have, but it did nonetheless,” she said coolly. “I hope you gathered us here to give us some insight as to why?”

He fell silent again, his eyes dropping to his feet. He felt Juno’s hand squeeze his, and with the touch to ground him, he was finally able to speak. “I can’t tell you the whole story. Some information is still…too sensitive.”

Vespa scoffed loudly, but Buddy shot her a look that quieted her.

“What I can tell you is that I froze up in that room because the red lighting of the security alarm took me back to…a very bad moment in my life. I was not in my right mind. I believe it was some sort of…flashback, or panic response. A poor explanation, I know, but-”

“Shhh,” Buddy said softly. Had she been anyone else Nureyev might have been enraged, but being shushed by Buddy Aurinko was a comfort. “That’s all we needed to know, Pete. When we asked you what happened, none of us expected you to recant every traumatic experience you’ve suffered on the spot. We just wanted to know what was wrong so we could prevent it from happening again.”

Nureyev laughed shakily. “You can’t protect me from every alarm system with red lights in the galaxy, or…” _Or every card game, or every guitar tune that sounds a little too familiar, or every older man with a certain build and a certain owlish look about the eyes-_ “It’s not feasible. Even I couldn’t have predicted that it would affect me so severely until it did.”

“No, but I can guess why it did.”

“…Can you?” Nureyev asked. He was genuinely curious, as he had no idea why himself.

“Whatever memory you have of this red room, have you ever…spoken to anyone about it? Even once?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. He knew now that Juno had witnessed it, but they’d still yet to actually talk about it.

“Well, there’s your answer. If you repress something that deeply, of course it’s going to affect you twice as much when it finally does rear its ugly head. You can’t trap these things inside of you forever, Peter. It doesn’t do you or the people around you any good.”

“You just said that I don’t have to talk about it-” Nureyev started to protest.

“I meant that you don’t have to talk about it to me or Vespa right now if you don’t want to. But you should do so with _someone_ , at _some_ point. Please.”

He squeezed Juno’s hand back. “I will.”

“Very good.” Buddy sank back on her pillow with a sigh. “Now if you could all leave me alone to my beauty sleep, it would be much appreciated.”

“Yes. Of course, Captain.”

Vespa stayed by her side, but the others filed out of the med bay. Nureyev caught Jet’s eye as they did, and the big man gave him a slight nod. It was such a small show of recognition, but he knew it meant a lot, and it made his heart soar.

He wanted to be a part of this family. He wasn’t used to having a family and he certainly wasn’t any good at it, but he wanted to be. He wanted to like and trust them, and be liked and trusted in return. He wanted to grow and change like Juno had.

He wanted to heal.

It was the start of a journey, not the end of one. The road was just as long as it had been before. He knew that, and it still terrified him.

But the next time they went out together he didn’t walk several paces behind the others, and the world didn’t end.

The next time he was offered something that reminded him of Brahma, he politely turned it down with the simple explanation that it carried negative associations, and the world didn’t end.

The next time Juno asked him if he was okay when he wasn’t, he said, _“No. Can you stay with me?”_

And the world didn’t end.

And Juno stayed.


End file.
